This November ECA Illustration was delighted to hold the 7th International Illustration Research symposium and to welcome lots of researchers and practitioners to Edinburgh.
This year’s event took ‘landscape’ as a starting point, inviting illustrators, mapmakers, printmakers, travelers, tourists, antiquarians, ethnographers and experimental archeologists to share their journeys through Illustration.
Speakers at ‘Shaping the View’ explored complex and various interpretations of Landscape in research, academic study, and professional practice.
From an international submission of abstracts, Jonathan Gibbs and Desdemona McCannon chose 37 academic papers for presentation over two days at ECA.
Five key speakers enhanced this discussion and debate and the symposium concluded with musical pieces, projections and installations of landscape themes in the Wee Red Bar.
As a post-script, Saturday’s site-specific workshops added a new dimension, using the city of Edinburgh to explore further aspects of time, space, and location.
The complementary exhibition in the Sculpture Court has enabled all students and staff to show their work alongside invited artists, leading exponents of Illustration. The exhibition demonstrates a high level of academic study, research, and professional practice.
An international selection of work has been curated for a wider understanding and appreciation of Illustration. Shaping the View has been made possible by research funding from the University of Edinburgh and by Saskia Cameron’s excellent design work of all the exhibition pieces.
Landscape-based work by 2nd and 3rd year students as part of the ‘Shaping the View’ exhibition
Roderick Mills, Paddy Molloy, Harvey Dingwall, Geoff Grandfield
Desdemona McCannon and Adrian Holmes
Jonathan Gibbs and Anne Howeson
Bianca Tschaikner on “Mapping imaginary Worlds’
Andrew Baker about ‘Landscape in Comics’
Stephanie Black on the exploration of nostalgia and the contemporary Moon under Water through illustration
Angie Lewin on printmaking, collecting, and finding wildness in unexpected places
A wonderful two days ended with drinks and joy in ECA’s Wee Red Bar
